charities roast in new york. >> this is the third time that governor romney and i have met recently. as some of you may have noticed i had a lot more energy in our second debate. i was really well rested after the nice long nap i had in the first debate. >> the campaign can require a lot of wardrobe changes. we -- blue jeans in the morning, perhaps, suits for a lunch fund-raiser. sport coat for dinner. but it's nice to finally relax and to wear what ann and i wear around the house. >> the president set off alarms on "the daily show" with his awkward response when jon stewart challenged him about benghazi. >> i would say even you would admit it was not the optimal response, at least to the american people, as far as us all being on the same page? >> well here's what i'll say. >> yeah. >> if four americans get killed it's not optimal and we're going

to fix it. >> right. >> all of it. >> all of it. >> midwest firewall, 18 days to go our polls. today while romney preps for the final debate, the president is hitting him hard in virginia. >> we've got to name this condition that he's going through. i think -- i think it's called romnesia. that's what it's called. i think that's what he's going through. i'm not a medical doctor, but i do want to go over some of the symptoms with you because i want to make sure nobody else catches it. >> mitt romney and paul ryan are both in florida and they caught a key endorsement from "the "orlando sentinel"" today. and what a kick.

>> that was a high schooler, a washington state high school football player kicking his way into the record books, nailing a 6-yard field goal. what a kick indeed. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. it is back to the battleground states after a night of comedy in new york. and white ties an tails. let's get back to our daily fix, joining me in person, chris cizilla and msnbc contributor managing editor of the "washington post" post politics and, of course, our own mark murray. deputy political editor. thank you both very much. >> sure. >> mark to you first, the nbc/marist poll, iowa and wisconsin, the top line and also the internals what are you seeing there in this firewall really, the midwest some. >> president obama has leads in iowa and wisconsin and by eight points in iowa, six points in wisconsin and if you basically say he's also ahead in ohio, basically winning those three

states gets him beyond 270 electoral votes. that is the midwest firewall. i will tell you we got a lot of comments from the romney campaign who say look, we think the race in iowa is much, much closer. they're actually pointing to some of the internal numbers that show that the early voting is maybe a little overstating president obama's case, that so far about 19% of the ballots that are in our poll had 34% of likely voters saying they voted early. that matches up with the number of ballots requested. getting into the internals people are arguing i would just recommend everyone this is going to be a close race in the midwest, even in those three states. >> if iowa and ohio were not as important as they are, we would not see so much campaign activity. joe biden is practically moving to iowa next week. >> i always say look at where they go at this point. they will not go anywhere, any of the four of them, obama, biden, romney or paul ryan, that they don't think they need. a good example, president obama in new hampshire yesterday.

it's four electoral votes. it tells you to mark's point, they are just trying to make sure, every one of those matters. he's not going to win with 365 electoral vote -- >> and remember that george w. bush won with 271 electoral votes in 2000. one more than he needed to win. you know, this is a numbers game and they're playing it right now. >> and let's look at the break that they did take. my own, you know, feeling in watching the al smith dinner and just seeing these two men trading jokes, rather than trading jabs, was that, you know, americans were really turned off by how much they got into each other's face in that debate and this may be be something that makes people feel, everything is okay, because our leaders can actually joke and get dressed up and have a night out. let's watch. >> win or lose, this is my last political campaign, so i'm trying to drink it all in.

unfortunately, mayor bloomberg will only let me have 16 ounces of it. >> in the spirit of sesame street the president's remarks are brought to you by the letter "o" and the number 16 trillion. >> here you are, where they are all dressed up and in a way that most americans cannot relate to but in a good cause, catholic charities, the amazing work they do there. what is the wisdom of the president going on jon stewart where he's speaking to his base and then getting a serious question as you will get from jon stewart, a serious person about benghazi, and adopting the answer the word optimal from jon stewart's question to give him that, but it's still shows a lack of command of the moment. take a look at this. >> i would say even you would admit it with you not the optimal response, at least to the american people, as far as us all being on the same page. >> here's what i'll say. >> yeah.

>> if four americans get killed, it's not optimal. >> right. >> and we're going to fix it. >> right. >> and -- >> all of it. >> all of it. >> and john mccain and others are all over him. let's watch what john mccain said on fox today. >> the optimal line, of course, is very regrettable and makes me a little sad, but for him to say that every piece of information that they got they laid out to the american people, is one of the most disingenuous statements i've ever heard. >> chris. >> yeah. >> the ap has a story which pulls together a lot of threads, the white house is pushing back it doesn't have anything new, but threads there was real-time information which we've been told at the state department, briefed on that ten days ago, they had an open line from benghazi as the attack was taking place to both tripoli and washington. intelligence people, officials, in both washington and tripoli knew it was not a protest, it was an invasion that night. they had conflicting information

from people on the streets saying the video was involved and so that's where the am ambiguity came in. >> without ambiguity the number of stories that have come out of the administration in terms of what they knew and how they knew it it's clear that right hand and left hand weren't talking. whether that was malevolent or didn't work out properly, it seems we can conclude that. what i would say, just back to your point, andrea, this is someone who has been elected the president of the united states, be he beat hillary clinton, the dominant figure in the democratic party in a primary. why would you repeat the word optimal? he has to understand that -- i understand it was in jon stewart's question, but why repeat it? a basic mistakes politicians don't use. >> to button it down, he knew he was on his way to the al smith dinner, but the fact is he better have a better presentation on this subject monday night and be the commander in chief. >> well, we saw that actually at the debate on tuesday night. that was probably maybe his best

exchange. >> exactly. >> but i would say look at president obama's tone. i really think that transcript, that optimal read worse than the tone where he took optimal and said jon stewart we're going to fix that. >> serious and sober. >> than just read the pool report of that remark. >> thank you very much. mark murray starting us. chris cizilla as always. joining me senator kay bailey huchlensonp aren from texas, strong romney supporters and leader in the senate. >> thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> do you think we're making too much, that john mccain made too much of the word optimal given the fact that, you know, this is a word, we clearly know that president understands the seriousness of losing four americans including chris stevens who he knew personally very well? >> andrea, i'm not focused as much on the exchange with jon stewart as i am about the -- i

think disingenuous answer that the president gave at the debate. you know, the senate gets the top secret briefings and even after the press was putting the timelines together and it was really well known that this was not some spontaneous uprising, it was a planned attack, it was in every media, yet in our briefings to congress, that we were getting from the cia officials and the state department officials, was saying the same thing that the president was trying to put over as the reason this video. and i think that's the most troubling part of this. that it was more let's not go there, we don't want to have this be a political issue, rather than this is a terrorist attack and i'm going to stand up for america. >> well, there was the briefing from -- to the senate in open session from matthew olson, the

counterterrorism official who said it was terror attack and the president did refer to it that way twice in that first week. others said other things as we know. >> the president did not say that in the first white house briefing, he generally talked about any act of terror is going to be met, but he didn't say what was clearly out there. >> senator he did -- he linked it to the four diplomats. >> susan rice -- well, we had a briefing in which we were misled and it was not an open briefing. and that's wrong. that is just wrong. and furthermore, he sent his ambassador to the united nations out on five shows which you know is a white house decision, saying when it was in the news and it was very clear, saying that it was just this spontaneous uprising. that's just not the way a president should hand al crisis

like this. we all understand the terrorist attacks and the need for america to come together but that's not what happened here. >> and senator, let me also ask you about the -- both campaigns going after the women's vote, particularly white college educated women who many say are going to be determining in this campaign. our new poll shows there is still a very large gender gap in the president's favor. obviously mitt romney and republicans traditionally certainly this republican candidate has a big male gender gap but the women's gap seems to be persistently in the president's favor in our latest polls. other polls show different things. where do you see the women's vote and the argument over whether women care more about health care, reproductive rights or the economy? >> well, i believe that it is the economy and it is the jobs. millions of women are unemployed, cannot get the good

work that they need and even maybe more hurtful is that they have worked to educate their children and send them to college, maybe work two jobs to do that and their children aren't getting jobs. i have many acquaintances and friends whose children have graduated from college and have internships that pay little or nothing an they're glad just to have the internship. that's not what we need to put up with for four more years. we can do better than that in this country. and i think that is what is resonating with women as well as men and college students who are looking at the job market and saying, do we really want four more years of the same thing which is what president obama is offering. the same thing. well it's going to get better. doing the spending, keeping the regulations high, keeping the talk of more taxes on small business going. that's not what we need. we need to have a change in this

country that says less regulation, less government, fewer taxes on small business and something that encourages hiring. >> finally before i let you go, let me ask you about ate the abortion question and contraception. mitt romney says he favors access to contraception for all women. sentence that disingenuous in that he has already -- he said previously he would support the blunt amendment which would give employers a way of opting out. he also has an ad up, a new romney ad yesterday, saying that he favors exceptions for rape and incest and the life of the mother in the case of abortion. but during the debates in the primaries, he said that he would favor signing legislation to outlaw roe v. wade. so isn't he really sending one message to women now, another message in the primaries. isn't this disingenuous on the part of governor romney. >> let me take the blunt

amendment and contraception. i think that what mitt romney is saying now is the same as he has said, that women should have access to birth control of their choice. the blunt amendment dealt with a religious exception. if it is a religious based hospital or charity. >> it's also employers. other employers. >> the employers of those charities and those hospitals that are religious based should have the option of not covering that with insurance. that doesn't mean they wouldn't still have access and -- >> if they could afford it. that's a big expense outside of their employee-based insurance. >> well, i think that if they choose to work, if they are, say, catholic and choose to work in a catholic hospital, i think the catholic hospital should have the right to exercise something that's so much a part of their religious beliefs and that's what the blunt amendment

did. and i don't think mitt romney has changed his view on that at all. i think he does believe in that access and would stand up for that. >> thank you very much. kay bailey hutchison. good to see you. >> thank you. >> up next, msnbc's rachel maddow on the campaign for women and what to watch for in monday night's final debate. stay with us. and join us monday live in boca raton, florida, for complete coverage of the presidential debate. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. question? anyone have occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? yeah. one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. approved! [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. yeah, you -- you know, everything can cost upwards of...[ whistles ] i did not want to think about that. relax, relax, relax. look at me, look at me. three words, dad -- e-trade financial consultants. so i can just go talk to 'em?

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you couldn't miss the targets of the campaigns, both campaigns during the last few days targeting women, especially college educated white women, who started taking a fresh look some say some polls say at least at mitt romney after the denver debate. and if those polls are correct

that was a real warning sign. serious enough to send off alarms inside the obama campaign. joining me now, my colleague and friend, rachel maddow host of "the rachel maddow show" to talk about where we stand 18 days out, you'll be talking about the boca debate. what is your sense of the campaign right now? is a lot of this noise or is there a narrative here and still momentum on mitt romney's side coming out of the denver debate? >> you know, right now we're at such an unsettled point in the campaign. i was struck by what chris aliz sa said how why have you to watch where the candidates are putting themselves to know what campaigns think about what where they need to make up the most ground, not where they say but where they go. that is complicated by the fact that both of these campaigns are spending so much time with their candidates doing debate prep. mitt romney did zero campaign events yesterday. he spoke at the al smith dinner but that was it. today he's got precisely one

event on his schedule and it is not until 8:30 p.m. president obama has been doing more events than mitt romney, but today he had that one big event this morning, the big rally where he did the rom dnesia riff but that's it because they are locked down. nobody thinks foreign policy is the central issue of the campaign but by virtue it's the last debate when the race is this close puts such a hot spotlight on foreign policy, for candidates who haven't been debating that at all for the past year. >> and you could argue that whoever actually makes the economic argument which foreign policy is, it's a global economy, and if mitt romney or president obama makes that as an economic argument, you can also work that into the debate and bob schieffer will most likely as well as the moderator, an experienced moderator at that. let's talk about the women's thing. amuses me when a lot of people talk about what women want and how to reach the woman voter, is

it the economy and health care and isn't there a merging of these issues and there is a pocketbook overlap that does affect women when you talk about health care and reproductive health. >> yes. that is i think a lot of -- the less smart political annualysisn our country says that you have to make a choice between social issues and economic issues when you're talking to women and that -- i think the romney campaign just decided early on that they would be able to sort of allow all of these questions about the newfound conservatism of the republican party on issues like contraception and traditional stance they have on choice. they thought they would allow those issues and make it about the economy. these issues are absolutely linked. think about the way it came up in the context of fair pay for women at the last debate. they were both candidates asked direct question, do you support fair pay for women. do you support efforts to try to ensure that.

and mitt romney's response, you know, he went into the binders of full of women anecdote but his overall argument was that women are a burden in the work force, that they are -- it is a pain to have a woman as an employee. they have to go home and cook dinner for their children in a way men never did. >> at 5:00. >> his answer, his argument was we need an economy that is so strong, that employers will be desperate for employees and so they'll be willing even to hire women. and you know what, if that's your view about women in the work force, you would be better off talking about abortion. it's not an attractive argument for women voters. >> you know, if fairness to governor romney we circle back to katherine fenton, the 24-year-old who asked that question and she said neither candidate really responded to her question about pay inequity. i think the president was trying to run through all of the effective points he hadn't made in denver and they didn't really respond as effectively as they

could have. >> and the president -- >> to the questions themselves. >> the president on issues like that, the way it seems to me is that he feels like everybody must know that he signed the lilly ledbetter fair act on his first day in office and this what is that did and why it was important in terms of women trying to get equal -- trying to get recourse for equal pay discrimination in the courts. he feels like people knows that about his record and he didn't spell that out. just mentioned it and moved on to other issues he thought might be important to women voters. as we get closer to date you get more people paying attention who have not paid attention to anything else in politics all year long. you have to start at square one with every answer. >> from years of covering politics and being out on instrumentp with the -- stump with the candidates we used to roll our eyes when bill clinton would say at campaign appearance after campaign appearance in 1992, you're going to have seven or eight jobs, the economy is changing, we have to get used to

this. you know, we would say this is the same old stump speech but it's new every time to those people and ronald reagan, the same thing. the repetitiveness of this is what i did about the auto bailout, tell people what you did and how that relates to your next agenda. i don't think arguably that either candidate has really driven those points home and we have 18 days left to do it. just on foreign policy, a lot of things can happen between now and november 6th. but doesn't the president have to get this benghazi story straight and have a real narrative, not wait for the investigation, have an explanation of what went wrong and what won't go round the next time around. >> i think the conversation that you just had with kay bailey hutchison was instructive. the discussion about benghazi has deteriorated to the point it's literally on fox news they were trying to litigate calling something an act of terror is the same as calling it a terror

act. we're getting down to this parsing of phrases in a way that i don't think actually connects with any voters who again haven't been paying a lot of very close yard by yard attention to what's going on in the campaign. i think the president needs to talk about benghazi in a big picture way. talk about the fact that this attack on an american interest overseas is a signal of the kind of damage that americans can suffer overseas in an unsettled world and it's a signal of our role in the world in a way that is very, very much up in the air in terms -- especially in terms of the arab spring. he can talk about it in big terms. i think he can score points about mitt romney for being cheap and small minded in the terms of the way he's tried to exploit it but we has to have less of a defensive explanation and more of a big picture explanation about what it means and why it means he should have a second term and had he shouldn't be replaced by this inexperienced sort of exploitive pair, paul ryan and mitt romney,

who have reacted to that event in a way that did not -- i think didn't show their best sides. >> rachel maddow, thank you so much for coming in early and sharing your thoughts. you'll be angering the debate -- anchoring the debate coverage monday night. >> thanks. >> thank you. up next, an economic reality check. what could happen on the economic front between now and election day. jillian tett. joining me. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. time for the your business entrepreneur of the week. former model and goldman sachs analyst created shoptiques that helps local boutiques that don't have their sites sell on-line. she knows content sells and launched a companion on-line magazine as an ultimate source for what's in. for more watch your business sunday mornings at 7:30 on msnbc. bob...

oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. a shattering 6 1/2 hours on wall street, the dow off more than 500 points, paper losses more than $500 billion, october 19th, 1987. wall street's black monday. >> today marks the 25th anniversary of black monday. incredibly when the dow lost more than 23% of its value, the largest one-day drop ever in wall street history. could it happen again.

or some other event. joining me now, jillian tett, assistant editor and columnist for "the financial times." i remember where i was, covering the reagan white house and it was a day that none of us thought we were going to get past. obviously things did work out, the markets bounced back, but what could happen now as an outside forcing event, spain, some other event in europe that could change the dynamic of this election in 18 days? >> well, china is an issue people are watching pretty nervously right now. we've seen a number of big american companies say recently they're seeing their earnings outlook concerns about a potential slow down about the pace of growth in china. the eurozone is the obvious one people have been watching for some time. there's been slightly encouraging news out of the euro zone recently in a sense that the policymakers are inching towards putting in place the core elements they need to make the eurozone more sustainable

like some banking union but it's still really a question of inching towards it. there's a real risk people could get concerned about what's happening in spain right now in relation to say the retail banks and whether there's a chance for banking panic at some point erupting. i hope not but that's something people are watchin but here in the u.s., i mean the big ones obviously are jobs and housing. >> jobs. >> because we've seen quite encouraging signs from the housing market. that's arguably as important as the jobs data in terms of impacting consumer psychology and looking at what happens at the housing market between now and the election is something that everyone interested in politics ought to be doing. >> especially because the peak of the foreclosures and the depressed housing markets were in key states like nevada and florida so it really does come home in states even that didn't have the worst of the unemployment effects they had the worst of the housing market downturn. at the same time, this debate

over women's unemployment during the debate, mitt romney cited a number that was over 500,000 of the number of jobs women's jobs that were lost since president obama took office. we went back to the bls and that number is actually 82,000. does this make a difference this trying to fact check. >> the jobs data is always very, very slippery and a lot of the argument about whether mitt romney was correct or not, boils down to whether you started counting in january 2009 or february 2009 when president obama took office. you can argue it both ways. mitt romney appears to be using the january 2009 number erroneously but that is slightly hair splitting. the key issue is two fold. firstly the job data is very slippery. there are lots of problems with the current jobs data. many would argue it's significantly undercounts the degree of joblessness in the economy because many people are simply not in the figures

because they've given up looking for work, but the other important point really is that at a lived experiential level people know that job market is very, very tough and that's going to weigh on the debate whether you think it's 7.8%, 8.1%, or whether you think it's 500 or 80,000. the actual experience of people's lives right now is that the jobs market is not an easy one. >> that's a good point. one more jobs number, monthly report, on the friday before the tuesday of the election day and it could bounce in any direction. >> absolutely. that's the big one that people are looking for right now. but as i said before, i think people should be watching the housing market too because in terms of people's well being, the housing market is so important. and, of course, varied picture according to what state you are in. if we are seeing signs the housing market is starting to turn or someone like jamie dimon or jpmorgan said recently that

could boost the feel good factor for voters. also if you look at the political survey data right now, people's perception of how the economy is performing, is actually very, very varied and that's partly because of political polarization, but it's also because the economy has been kind of bouncing along the bottom. there are very many confusing counter currents in the economy right now. it's possible to argue that actually the economy is getting better, equally possible to argue from the data things are pretty grim. it's a fine judgment right now as to how people actually perceive the economy and whether they want to blame or applaud president obama for it. >> thank you very much, jillian tett, from the financial times. we'll be right back. but i'm sti. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't unstuff your nose. what? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels speeds relief to your worst cold symptoms plus has a decongestant for your stuffy nose. thanks. that's the cold truth! [ male announcer ] marie callender's puts

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four years and looks as though the target may have been a key ha rirry supporter. this is troubling. is this an overflow of what's going on in syria? >> absolutely, andrea. the explosion happened at the height of rush hour when people were picking up their children from school heading back home. it was a devastating explosion, enormous and eight people have been killed and we hear up to 110 people injured so far. the target of the explosion of the bombing was hassan, a brigadier general here in charge of the ha rirry assassination investigation and a series of a slew of investigations have that taken place. all these were against individuals who are against the syrian regime. he seems to have fallen victim to the same series of

assassinations against essentially the syrian regime seems to have been taking out one opponent after another. this is how -- this expressed itself today here in lebanon. it's kind of a spillover that we're seeing from syria, where the sectarian tensions have [ inaudible ] that it's blown up into a civil war over there. lebanon has managed to side step it so far with the tensions with what happened today, we're worried tension may have spilled over into lebanon as well. >> tragic and worrying. thank you so much. the benghazi terror attack is a main focus at monday's foreign policy debate in boca. joining me former u.s. ambassador and undersecretary of state for political affairs nicolas burns. there have been conflicting reports and now we're told that first of all, the cia knew in real time that this was a terror attack but there were other

reports from the streets saying maybe it was related to the video and that the intelligence bureaucracy created post-9/11, the national intelligence chief knew on the saturday night before susan rice went out for the administration to speak, much more ambiguously on sunday morning, how is that possible that she was not properly briefed by the intelligence community before she went on sunday television? >> well, you know, andrea, it's not possible for me to know what happened inside the administration but i'll tell you this, as you know i served in democratic and republican administrations, i served in five embassies and consulates in my career and it's credible and believable to me that in a crisis like this, you do get conflicting reports. the administration believed in the first few days after the atack on benghazi, that there had been one cause of it and as more information came in and they sifted through it they came to another explanation. to me, that doesn't amount to misleading the american public. i don't think that the president

or secretary clinton or ambassador rice would ever do that. they're honorable people and honest people and i really think they try to do their best in this very difficult conflict and i guess i find, andrea, this rush to judgment during a presidential campaign, i find it to be troubling and i find it to be very distasteful. because we ought to be focusing on two key issues. what happened that night, what caused the breakdown in security and there's been a review panel put together by secretary clinton appropriately to look at that and secondly how do we prevent these attacks from occurring in the future, keep our diplomats safe. that's what we ought to be talking about rather than making this a partisan football in my judgment. >> but at the same time the president has the challenge, by monday, at this foreign policy debate, to have a real narrative and explanation. he won't have time to wait for that review board. >> well, you know, it's really important that this review board led by a very distinguished former ambassador tom pickering be given the time it needs to do

its job and politics doesn't intrude there. i would also say, andrea, certainly the president's going to have to answer this question directly on monday night, of course. everyone would expect that. i think it's unwise and a little bit risky for the romney campaign to, you know, to make this accusation because governor romney acted in -- on that very night he issued a statement that was in hindsight very unwise itself. he didn't get his facts straight in the second debate. the republicans were part of the group in congress that cut funding for embassy security, so as a former diplomat i would just -- i hate to see this become political. i really think we ought to focus on the key issue there and that is how do we keep our people safe going forward. >> the president was on the jon stewart program and jon stewart asked a question about benghazi saying is it optimal for something like this to happen and the president took those words and incorporated it's never optimal when you lose four

people. now there's at least one report that "daily mail" in the uk has interviewed ambassador stevens' moth and she's distressed by this. do presidents and xhapde er commanders in chief have to figure out the appropriate language or is that also nitpicking? >> i tend not to be -- try not to be overly judgmental. i can imagine the pressure all of our senior officials are under and there's no question having watched president obama in the days after the attack, he led with strength. he led with dignity as he had to officiate over the difficult ceremony over the return of our four diplomats from benghazi and i think that he's been a dignified presence throughout this. again, andrea, i guess i just say -- i've worked for both political parties in government, both republican and democratic administrations, i really don't think we should insist on politicizing this.

it's just too much at stake for the united states and these arab revolutions and we've got to find a way to protect our diplomats. i would hope that the democratic and republican parties could combine in congress to get full funding for security to improve security for our embassies and consulates. that's the most important thing. we've got to go after the -- the u.s. government has to go after the people who murdered our diplomats and the obama administration has said it will do that and that ought to be a focus as well. >> thank you very much, nick burns. still ahead, democratic congressman chris van hollen. stay with us. how do you make as favorite recipes? just begin with america's favorite soups. bring out chicken broccoli alfredo. or best-ever meatloaf. go to campbellskitchen.com for recipes, plus a valuable coupon. campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do.

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joining me now with 18 days to go, bill burton from team obama and vin weber romney supporter, former member of congress. first to you, bill burton, how tight is this and look at the battlegrounds. is it all about ohio and iowa or are there other states that you are concerned about at this stage? >> hi there, andrea. you know it's very close election. it was always going to be close. if you look at those states, you

know, i know the nbc poll has a six-point lead in wisconsin for the president, 8-point lead in iowa, i think it's a little tighter than that. it's tight in ohio, it's tight in nevada, it's tight in colorado. i think we're going have a barn burner going down all the way to the end. i think the president has a little bit of an advantage in all of those states, but i think we've got a close election and i think that the reason that it is so close, but in places like ohio the president still has an advantage because mitt romney's policies when it comes to tax fairness, s just don't wash wit the folks in that state. it makes it hard to win the blue collar voters whose taxes would go up to pay for his tax cuts for the wealthy. >> let vin get in here. your take, whether mitt romney can win ohio and if -- i mean there's even talk that the romney camp thinks -- some believe they should go back into pennsylvania. they haven't been advertising in pennsylvania, not campaigning there. >> do they think they've got a shot in either pennsylvania or

michigan? >> potentially. look at all these states that bill has talked about, they're going to be a barn burner. bill wouldn't have said that a month ago. he would have said these are almost locked down for the president. the fact is the volatility in the race over the last few weeks mainly benefits the romney campaign. it hasn't put the election away. it hasn't ended the campaign. it means that places that were looking like they were solidifying for the president in the wake of the democratic national convention are today up for grabs. we know for sure iowa, wisconsin, ohio, colorado, are definitely contestable. we're not sure about pennsylvania or michigan yet but the way trends are going they could become contestable going into the election. i even was in my home state of minnesota last weekend, saw a lot of independent polling, not romney campaign polling, that showed that minnesota is moving, may not move far enough to be put in the romney column but certainly moving away from the president. >> 30 seconds to both of you. bill burton, which way do you think the momentum is going to go in the next couple of days?

>> i think the president had such a strong debate performance and we've seen it in polling, we've seen it in focus groups, the fact of the matter is the president got a lot of momentum out of that last debate.debate. i think that even a month ago i would have said these states would be close, because the president was at an artificial high coming out of the convention in part because mitt romney had a terrible month for a whole number of issues. the race is where it was going to be, which is very close, but the president had. >> let me have you button it down, vin. >> i know governor romney has dispelled the major attack on him over the last year, which is the attempt by the obama campaign to vile fi him as an individual. >> he has to pass the commander of chief test on monday. >> i think he'll pass it and win the election. >> vin weber, bill burton. we'll talk to you soon. we'll be right back. ♪ [ honk! ] ♪

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joining meg is chris van haul ladder to talk about what to look forward in the debate monday night. how do you game the debate? >> i'm looking forward to this debate. i think the country is. president obama has been a very strong commander in chief. he's done exactly what he said he would do. goat our troops out of iraq. he refocused our efforts on getting osama bin laden and decimating the upper ranks of al qaeda. he did that. he has a plan to bring our troops home from afghanistan by the end of 2014 responsibly handing off the responsibility to the afghan forces. he has a very strong record to run on, and when the romney campaign has talked about foreign policy issues, they haven't come up with anything substantively that they would do different than the president, other than to say that, you know, the president isn't doing everything he can. >> congressman, doesn't he have to have -- >> if they want to commit troops on the ground, they should tell the american people, whether it's in syria or taking action

militarily immediately in iran. >> more immediately doesn't the president have to, congressman, have a better explanation about benghazi before monday? >> well, i think that the republicans have been trying to politicize this from day one. we know that mitt romney made a very unfortunate statement very early on. i'm the son of a career foreign service officer, like chris steven was a foreign service officer. i find it despicable how mitt romney and republicans have tried to exploit the issue. we need to get to the bottom of the facts. the intelligence community needs to piece together the information, and we need to take immediate action to strengthen our embassy and track down the killers. that's what the president said he will do. >> thank you so much, congressman chris van holland. is that does it for us for this friday edition of "andrea mitchell reports." join us monday. we'll be in florida for the

third and final presidential debate. "news nation" is next. anncr: every president inherits challenges.

few have faced so many. four years later... our enemies have been brought to justice. our heroes are coming home. assembly lines are humming again. there are still challenges to meet. children to educate. a middle class to rebuild. but the last thing we should do is turn back now. president obama: i'm barack obama and... i approve this message.

i'm richard liu in for tamron hall, and "news nation" is back to the battlegrounds on this friday. president obama dishing out a bit of medical advice for romney hitting he him from moves to the middle while on the stump this afternoon in virginia. >> he's changing up so much and backtracking and side-stepping. we've got to name this condition that he's going through. i think it's called romnesia. >> and now romnesia is trending on twitter. the romney campaign fired back with a statement saying, quote, women have not forgotten how we suffered over the last four years in the obama economy with